14 DAY TRIAL // With the smartphone market split between Android and iOS, there isn't much room for smaller players like Windows Phone and BlackBerry. At least not yet.
There are two major smartphone manufacturers that seem to have dominant positions over the rest: Apple and Samsung. However, while Apple continues to sell more and more smartphones, Samsung has lost the top position in several markets.
Samsung wants its Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge to be extremely popular, otherwise they will lose even more market share. But that's not the only problem for the South Korean company.
Samsung doesn't seem to be capable of competing with local OEMs in emerging markets. Its smartphones aren't cheap enough for those markets and native OEMs are taking advantage of this.
Cyanogen's CEO Kirt McMaster said in an interview for BusinessInsider that Samsung might be “slaughtered” in the next five years. He's giving examples like BlackBerry and Nokia and their sudden downfall.
Samsung has lost top position in a few countries
As he points out, Samsung has been surpassed in India my local OEM Micromax, which sold more smartphones last summer than the South Korean company did.
And things don't look better in the Philippines and Latin America, where companies like Cherry Mobile and Blu came up with more competitive devices than Samsung.
According to McMaster, “they understand local marketing and distribution better than any incumbent that attempts to move into the region. These guys are hustlers; they’re fast moving. They know what it takes to influence market dynamics.”
Samsung is still the number one smartphone maker
Obviously, it's hard to tell what will happen with any major company in the smartphone business, and even if Samsung lost a few markets, it still remains the largest smartphone maker in the world.
We'll see what happens in the months following Galaxy S6's release and how Samsung plans to focus its budget-friendly range of smartphones for these particular markets.